1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to a digital audio broadcast system and in particular to selective broadcasting to digital audio broadcast receivers. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to selective broadcasting of commercial advertisements to mobile digital radios.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital radios have become common around the world, with some statistics showing that digital radios reach over one third of the population in Europe and Canada. As with analog radio broadcasts, digital radio broadcasts may include commercials or advertisements. The advent of digital radio, however, presents many opportunities for new tools which commercial radio broadcasters may utilize to optimize their return on investment through advertising.
One of the key problems with either broadcast method is that many advertisers compete for limited available advertising (ad) slots during a broadcast program. Ad slots may not be utilized efficiently, and advertisers may buy multiple slots for more exposure to the listeners. In some instances, an advertiser may want the listener to hear the same commercial repeatedly in order to condition the listener's recall, as in the case with pizza or fast food advertisements. Other times, however, an advertiser wishing only to inform listeners of some special event may buy multiple slots in the hope that the listener will hear the advertisement at least once (or some number of times).
An example of the latter case is a circus, which may advertise the appearance of the circus in a particular town on certain dates. The main goal of the advertisement is to inform listeners that the circus is coming and, generally, a listener who has heard the advertisement once does not need to hear that advertisement repeatedly. However, to make sure that a high percentage of listeners of a given radio station hear the advertisement at least once, the circus may buy multiple ad slots at different times. The circus may, for instance, purchase four slots and pay $1,000 for those slots.
However, if some mechanism existed ensuring that the same number of listeners would hear the advertisement using only two time slots, the broadcaster could sell effectively the same advertising to the circus for less total cost while charging more on a per-slot basis, saving the circus money and increasing the broadcaster's revenue. That is, if the broadcaster could sell two time slots of the original four to the circus for $700, reaching the same number of listeners, and also sell the remaining two time slots for $700, the broadcaster could receive $1,400 for the four time slots rather than $1,000. The circus would save $300 while receiving the same advertising exposure, creating a win-win situation. In addition, the listener will also benefit because the automatic selection bias towards previously unheard or less heard ads will reducing the number of ads the listener hears repeatedly. Thus, there is a win-win-win situation for the advertiser, broadcaster, and listener.
It would be desirable, therefore, to improve the efficiency of broadcast commercials in reaching targeted listeners.